300: Andrew Klavan and The Truth and Beauty

Andrew Klavan is an award-winning writer, screenwriter, and media commentator. An internationally bestselling novelist and two-time Edgar Award-winner, Klavan is also a contributing editor to City Journal, the magazine of the Manhattan Institute, and the host of a popular podcast on DailyWire.com, The Andrew Klavan Show. Today, Andrew shares the story of how the Gospels captured his attention as literature, finding Christ in his 40s, and the joy he’s found in Jesus. Andrew’s story reminds us that God is everywhere if we only have eyes to see.

Listen to Andrew’s story in your favorite podcast app!

Stories Andrew shared:

• Growing up in a classic American suburb in a Jewish family
• Being bar mitzvahed and receiving gifts
• His guilt about not caring about the faith and throwing away his gifts
• Looking for tough guy role models in books
• His father’s anger about catching him reading the Bible
• Wrestling with Jesus being in the center of his cultural and literary understanding
• Dealing with mental illness in his 20s
• The psychairistrist who helped cure him which he believes was a miracle
• Starting to pray in his 40s in an off-handed way
• Talking to God in his car and understanding that he should be baptized
• The change that came over him after believing
• His wife’s conversion as well
• Finding Christ on every page of his memoir and realizing that the story wasn’t about him at all
• Trying to get to know Jesus through reading the Gospels
• Reflecting on his joy found in Christ
• Teaching himself Greek so he can read Scripture in its original language
• Studying the Gospels and the lines from the English poets that kept coming to mind
• The Gospel-centered way of seeing the world
• Struggling with envy and how it got better through Christ

Great quotes from Andrew:

Everything I found true and beautiful was represented in literature by Christ.

I believe both as a son and as a parent, you

When you’re not a cradle Christian, you’re not afraid to ask God questions.

Doubt is a really important function of faith.

Resources we mentioned:

• Andrew’s website
• The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England’s Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus by Andrew Klavan
• The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ by Andrew Klavan
• The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers

Related episodes:

• Jen Rosner and and Finding Messiah
• Os Guinness and Carpe Diem Redeemed
• Karen Swallow Prior and the Spiritual Practice of Reading Fiction

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